Please Sign this Petition

Dear Readers,

Please sign this petition:

“Baby Girl” Veronica Brown is a three year old Cherokee child who has lived with her biological Cherokee father Dusten Brown and his family for 19 months in Oklahoma. Matt and Melanie Capobianco from South Carolina are trying to adopt and a remove Baby Girl from a loving and safe Native American family. The South Carolina Supreme Court has granted the adoption without due process or a hearing to determine what is in her best interest. She will be removed from a fit Native parent, a loving Native family and Native community in which she has thrived. Dusten Brown has been denied a fair hearing. This is an example of destruction of tribes and against the Indian Child Welfare Act.

I have been following this case closely, and am appalled by what has been happening. When I am less emotional I want to write more about this case, but for now, I implore you to sign the petition to keep the sanctity of the ICWA and allow Veronica Brown to remain living with her biological dad, sisters, stepmom, grandparents and connected to her Cherokee roots. As an adoptee I am shocked and angered by the vicious attacks on the character of the biological father, the blatant disregard for ethics and what is really in the ‘best interest’ of this child. It has become a game where money=power and adoptive couples with money are bullying the system in order to raise a child who does not need a new home.

 

 

 

 

State of the Union. State of my Mind.

I snapped this picture on MLK Day 2013 in downtown Seattle.

There’s a film of weariness hanging over me that I cannot seem to scrub off. I’m not sure if it’s the long nights with a teething toddler, or the daily reminder that my students are on the wrong side of the education tracks. Always working to gain ground. Never really getting ahead. Never really breaking through the walls. Sure that’s an overstatement, as I just learned of a sweet girl in my Fall quarter who made honor roll, but I also take her privileged homeschool life into account, and think: can all of my students make it? Can 50% of them make it? And what does making it really look like?

I flicked through the radio stations last night and heard snippets of breaking-news-gunfire from the cop-killer standoff and our president’s State of the Union address. I marvelled at how my student’s existence is more like that gunfight scene than the flowery words spouting from the president’s mouth. Perhaps I’m becoming cynical, now that I’m 30 and a mom and have been working with youth and families at-risk for a few years now, but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of defeatedness after listening to the brief ideas the president said. Something about a college scorecard and something about making the world a better place, which sounds nice, but doesn’t really cut it, in my opinion.

This idea of a college scorecard, so that parents can know the “bang for their buck” is good, in theory, but what does it really mean in practicality? What does it mean for my first generation students whose parents are looking for a “bang for their buck,” they’re looking for their student to get a job and move out because there are more mouths to feed. These students are on their own, 16, 17, 18, high school dropouts trying to reach the moon and stars and their dreamed-for AA degree. Most won’t make it. Not because we don’t do everything we can to advocate for them, to teach them how to navigate college, and pick majors, but because this-present-moment-life gets in their way, from jobs and babies and losing babies and breaking up and losing jobs, and LIFE gets in their way. But also, their past gets in their way. Choices they’ve made. Choices that have been made on their behalf. Choices that others have made that have affected them.

Mostly I am sad at how these student’s previous educational experience did not prepare them to be here at college. My public school kids were shuffled through like cattle, focusing on standardized tests and not really learning much about themselves, and my homeschooled kids lack an ability to socially interact with people who aren’t exactly like them, and haven’t been exposed to things that they might not agree with, they shut down when even the slightest ‘offensive’ material is presented (like, perhaps, having to decide whether they agree/disagree with innocuous statements like ‘be the change you wish to see in the world,’ or ‘love at first sight.’)

Boof and I go round and round about my own educational experience, having graduated debt-free from college and then having to take out thousands of dollars in loans for my Master’s. I go round and round with my friend Russ about his Sociology class and their lack of preparedness or ability to critically think. I feel like my students are stuck in a votex of propoganda where the message they get is “go to college, it will help you get a good job,” but many lack the ability to succeed in college and who’s to say that a college degree, at least a non-specific one like a general AA or a liberal arts BA will really get you a job. Because the liberal arts BA seems to be the equivilant of the old highschool diploma. Educational inflation.

I chose English because in high school I took classes like English, History, Math and PE. I knew I didn’t like Math, Science was hard, and English seemed interesting. I went to college and figured, “well, I guess I could be a writer, if a miracle happened, or I could teach English.” I mean, I thought I had thought a lot about it, but I really hadn’t. I figured that teaching was at least a job that was connected to a major. I couldn’t fathom all my friends who were Religous Studies majors and then ended up working as admin assistants, not doing anything remotely similar to their degree. What would it have looked like, though, if career and tech classes had been mandatory in HS? What would I have chosen to do if I had been forced into on-the-job training as a dental assistant or dabbled in culinary arts or radiology tech? Instead of the message ‘everyone needs to go to college,’ what if the message was, from a young-age, here are jobs or careers, try them, explore, learn about yourself, do what you’re good at, know that a job won’t bring all the fulfillment that you want so you’ll need hobbies, and go to college if you need to for the career you want, but don’t just go to college because you don’t know what to do and people are telling you to.

I don’t know if the post-secondary system can ever be fixed. I feel like I get my students too late to make a lot of difference. I wish that the upbringing in the K-12 system would equip them for higher education, and I wish that education was affordable and relevant to today’s market. I wish businesses really looked at whether someone would be a good fit for a job, regardless of whether they have a BA or an AA degree. I wish I had more hope than I currently do that it will all settle out and make my student’s lives shiny and good. These people I teach are delightful, with lovely and hard stories, and they deserve to not be failed by an archaic system.

I have a son. He will graduate from high school in 2029. What will the state of the union be then? The state of education?

Activism

Do you consider yourself an “activist” of any sort? If so, what areas of policy and social justice are you most passionate about? What outlets of activism (petitioning, blogging, writing op-eds, fundraising, etc.) have you done or would like to do? What do you wish others would understand about causes that are important to you?

Yes, I am an activist.

I think it started when I was a little girl, and went with my parents around our unincoporated part of the county and worked to get it annexed to the closest city. It was politics that made sense to me, though I was just a kid.

I am probably most active in Adoptee Rights, because it is something that effects me on a daily basis. I have donated money to Adoptee Rights Coalition, and to protests that I have been unable to attend, have signed online petitions, and have corresponded with representatives here in WA that have been working on a bill to allow Adult Adoptees to access their Original Birth Certificate. I have circumvented the Washington State confidential intermediary law, and have helped reunite several individuals. I helped reunite both of my adopted siblings, and then reunited a birthmother with her daughter. I spent three years of graduate school focusing on adoption issues, and I consider each of my papers and presentations as further activistm, as it helped a group of graduating professionals learn about issues that will inevitably affect clients they might have. In 2010, I flew to New York and spoke at a national conference on counseling adult adoptees.

In addition to adoptee activism, I am also passionate about other things, especially equality for my gay and lesbian friends. I registered to vote this year, simply to vote for the Referendum 74 that allows my gay and lesbian friends to get married. And, hallelujah the referendum passed! Woo! Now, if only I could be as successful with my adoptee rights 🙂

Personal Opinion on Adoption

What is your opinion of adoption today? Are you in favor of or against adoption, and how do various circumstances affect your opinion? Has your opinion changed over time? If so, what caused you to rethink your former opinion? What do you think is the biggest need for change in the adoption industry or is the current model for adoption fine the way it is?

I am fundamentally a family preservationist. My opinion is both influenced by my adoptee status, as well as my professional work as a mental health professional specializing in adoption, foster-care and crisis work.

I believe that women and men should be supported in raising their children, regardless of their parental age, socio-economic status, race, or educational achievement level.

I believe that women should bond with their babies after birth before they make the decision whether they can or want to raise their children, because hormones and emotions are powerful, and even I, an almost-30-first time mom with a Master’s degree/home/good job/partner did not believe, while pregnant, that I could do it.

I believe when individuals do not wish to parent, that children should be raised by close biological kin…aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins.

And when children are unable to be raised by biological kin, I believe they should be cared for by fictive kin, (“aunties” or neighbors or members of the church/synagogue) and be able to retain their original identity as a member of their biological family.

I believe that children should have a safe place to grow up, free from neglect and abuse.

I believe in providing homes for children who need homes, and not babies for individuals who want babies.

I do not believe that adoption is the ultimate answer to the statements above.

But if adoption has to happen, I believe that it should be open, and legally enforced custody arrangement on both sides, so that a “birth parent” cannot cause an adoptee to lose access to their family, and an adoptive family cannot simply decide to close the adoption for whatever whim they decide.

Because, the way I see, it, adoption as a system, is so flawed that it can be considered broken. This may seem shocking to people, because from a dominate narrative, adoption is a booming wonderful industry that is bringing “forever families” together. I see it very differently. I see the number of viable adoptable infants going down each year, because of a greater support system for un-wed young moms, and the money on marketing toward women in order to coerce or influence an adoption plan when a woman could be supported in keeping her baby is going up. I, in fact, am a victim of the pervasive subversive supply and demand need by the ever starving adoption industry.

I had gone in for my first wellness check with Potamus, around 12 weeks or so into my pregnancy, and the whole tone of the appointment changed when the nurse learned that Potamus was not, in fact, planned. The next thing out of her mouth was, “have you considered adoption?”

Potamus was not a child languishing in an orphanage because of abuse and neglect, and I was not some crack-whore who needed my kid taken from me. But I was nervous about pregnancy and whether I could do it, and I can only imagine that if I had been younger or with less support, even I might have fallen victim to such preying-on tactics. And I believe that it is unacceptable for that to take place.

But adoption is a booming business, and needs mothers to be separated from their children in order for cash-paying couples to get what they want.

It’s gruesome to look at it that way, but it is the truth. Money changes hand. You can try say that the money I spend in a restaurant is to go for the servers and the cookers and the dining room chairs, but, I am, at the end of the day, buying a burger to eat. And that is how current adoption is functioning, here in America. When money gets involved the corruption skyrockets.

And then, we take our shiny American dollar and go into a foreign country where it is worth MUCH more and see children who (legitimately) need to be cared for…but then people realize that there is money to be made, and the (equally legitimate) trafficking of children happens. This is why countries have shut down their international adoptions, because American dollars flood a poor economy, and women feel forced to relinquish kids, or they are kidnapped, and sold into rings where they are made available for American adoptions. Nepal. Vietnam. Guatamala. Ethiopia. Check it out, it is disgusting…AND takes away from children who might also legitimately need homes or to be cared for.

So, if I were to change anything, it would be the money aspect. And the society’s rosy color glass belief that adoption is really a win-win situation for everyone. But that’s probably a topic for another day.

Four Years Ago? 11 Years ago?

I keep hearing repub-types saying things like “where were you four years ago?” in an assumptive attempt to sway votes toward the Ryan/Romney camp. But it got me thinking, reminiscing, on where I actually WAS four years ago…where I am today…and the implications of my answer might not make those repub-types as happy if it means I’m going to vote for this trend to stay the same.

Now don’t get me wrong, as a privileged white woman of middle class origins, I know that many many people in America have not been as fortunate as me in the last four years. But here is where I was four years ago:

September 2008
Boof and I  are three months away from our wedding date. I am taking 10 graduate credits, in full last-minute-wedding-planning mode, and working part-time as a substitue teacher. I lived in a little one bedroom apartment that had been infested with tiny little flies after the basement/crawl-space that had been flooded when a sewage holding tank backed up and overflowed.

In the four years since, I have gotten married, lived in a sweet 2 bedroom apartment (with no fly infestation), gotten a dog, received my Masters of Arts in Education, Community Counseling with a 4.0 GPA and honors, gotten pregnant, bought a house for a good price and in a good neighborhood, had a healthy/happy baby, become a licensed counselor, and had three progressively better paying jobs in my field of interest.

Whoa, that’s a huge list of amazing things that have happened in the past 4 years! And if that’s because Obama has been president, well, then I can’t really complain about his leadership.

And with this being the anniversary of September 11, 2001 it got me thinking. Where were YOU four years ago? But also…where were you ELEVEN years ago? It’s amazing for me to look back on such a tragic day and see how beautiful my life has become.

 

Voter Registration

I missed my first election by aproximately 1 month (dang you December birthday!). I remember filling out all the paperwork in my US Government Class in high school. It was a requirement for all of us to register to vote, and we spent the course of the semester researching the election and having debates on different issues. I was bored. It’s not that I didn’t care about stuff, it all just seemed so BIG, so confusing and convoluted and that everything was full of half-truths and 3/4 lies. In some ways, I was very glad that I wasn’t able to vote yet. It gave me pause and a 4 year excuse.

I was in college when the next election came around. Bush was in office and the choice was to re-elect him or elect John Kerry. It’s then when I found out that my Government teacher hadn’t actually turned in all of our voter registrations. Therefore, I was NOT registered to vote. Not really wanting Bush to stay in office, but still being a part of the conservative Christian church and not yet being able to fully articulate my differing spiritual AND political beliefs, I felt that I escaped the election unscathed, being able to walk the line of Bush-Bashing with my hippie friends and deferring to the president with my Christian Righters. Best of both worlds, no? Plus, Kerry looked like a basset hound, I couldn’t very well get the motivation to vote for that guy, right?

In my heart I voted for Obama.

Once again an election came…and went…but this time I pretended to be more political. I even went so far as to tell people I voted for Obama. I justified it in my mind by the belief that 1) I live in a liberal city and state where the electoral vote goes toward Democrat candidates, 2)if I voted for someone other than Obama, it likely wouldn’t have mattered;  therefore, my city, and my state voted for Obama, which kindasortameansthativotedforhimtoo, right?

Apparently, it’s all about the presidents.

And then, this year hit. And I was just as apathetic about the whole thing again. I loathe the commercials, the lies, and the overly slick hairdos. . . But that conversation with my dad, about democrats being evil, really got to me. While I have now processed the emotions, it certainly sparked an initial feeling in me that went something along the lines of ‘well, maybe I should vote, simply to cancel out my father’s vote.”

Thankfully I have grown a little since that incident, but Boof looked at me with raised eyebrows when I told him that I finally took the plunge and registered. His line, “I asked you if you were, since I know you’re passionate about things like gay marriage.” And truthfully, it’s something that I’ve been missing…there is SO much focus on the presidential election, for which I feel like I have very little control thanks to the electoral college…but these local things…these things I just might be able to influence.

Of course, I still have a few weeks to change my mind about actually putting in black/white my beliefs on things…but at this point, my beliefs and passions for equality are driving me toward the voting box (which, in King County is my mailbox).

What motivates you to vote?